Official Jessica Watson Blog

Winds on the nose and a current against us for the last few days has made for pretty painful progress, we're only just getting close to Kiritimati (Christmas) Island now. All going to plan we should be around and clear by the morning, it'll be a relief to have a bit of sea room and to be making progress south again.

Kiritimati Island sounds pretty interesting so I've added it to the list places to stop off at next time! Apparently it's the world's largest atoll and thanks to a few random changes in direction by the date line its also the worlds eastern most country. From what I've read it sounds pretty picture perfect with white sandy beaches and coral lagoons but don't worry I'm not too tempted to stop, in fact I'll be lucky if I can even see a distant glow of lights as I pass by tonight. Oh and its said to be a good spot for fishing!

We passed a boat (three actually!) for the first time in over a week yesterday, they were big fishing boats but didn't appear to speak English. I also got a bit of a fright yesterday, I was sitting down below at the nav station and heard the horrible nose of something rubbing down the hull, I climbed outside in time to see a big brown buoy caught up in the windvane, luckily it freed itself before I could do anything and there wasn't any damage. I spotted a few more buoys during the day but have no idea what exactly they are and what they're doing just bobbing about out here?

Plenty of clear and starry nights lately and I've been seeing plenty of them because even thought it seems to have cooled down a little lately it's still much easier to get anything done after the sunsets. I was a little jealous to hear that everyone back home was heading out to the movies last night so I had my own movie night watching a DVD on my Toughbook and making up some popcorn!

Still plenty of tropical sailing to go yet but I'm already thinking more and more about the south and Cape Horn.

That's going to have to be it from me because its time to go tack over again, fingers crossed this should be the last one to get us round the island!

Jesse